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Description: | two groups of very small characters, maker's marks?
obverse design : fortress-city, stepped and walled. The roofs and walls of houses and tall factory-like chimney stacks are
revealed on high, the whole elaborate structure being surmounted by squat domed construction. At the base of the fortress, on either side
of a wide set of steps, is a group of warriors armed with lances, each group possessing a standard bearer. The group on the left manoeuvre
an artillery piece the barrel of which is highly elevated. From behind the stepped walls of the fortress defenders' lances
project
In this First World War uniface medal the German sculptor Ludwig Gies (1887-1966) reveals a fascination with
anachronistic medievalist imagery and the machinery and symbols of modern warfare. The conjunction of lance-carrying foot soldiers (with a
wheeled mortar) besieging a fortress having the characteristics of a modern industrial complex is perhaps a metaphor for the nature of the
First World War itself - in which traditional heroic values are rendered obsolete by the impersonal mass-industrial nature of the conflict. | Publisher: | http://www.iwm.org.uk | Subjects: | DE.A First World War & Siege Operations German & 1914 = 1916 commemorative Artillery | Source: | Imperial War Museum | Creator: | Gies, Ludwig | Identifier: | http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/o... | Go to resource |
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